UK Banks Ordered to be More App-Friendly by 2018

The Competition and Markets Authority has finished its two-year sighing and meetings process looking at the state of the UK banking sector, with one key conclusion being that the banks aren't trying hard enough to compete with each other via their mobile options. So the CMA would like them all to push app connectivity much harder.

Because we have lots of legacy big banks people opened accounts with decades ago and can't be bothered switching, it makes it hard for smaller and newer financial businesses to break in. To help fix this, the CMA is pushing for its "Open Banking" system to be put in place by 2018; a series of changes that should make it easier to switch providers on a whim and would also open access to data to third-party apps, meaning all sorts of financial aggregators and ones offering the gamification of savings could appear.

The CMA is also asking banks to send out more local news to their members, suggesting they tell account holders of local branch closures and changes in fee structures, so the bankers of the near future will have more information to hand about whether they're signed up to one of the goodies or one of the baddies. [GOV via BBC]